Nutrition:One Size Does Not Fit All!

There is so much out there on what you should or shouldn’t eat, how often, how much, should you take supplements, all have valid scientific evidence supporting their claims, but when it comes down to it everyone is different and what may suit one person may not suit another.

I remember many years ago when I was first dating my partner, Robert, I was his support crew on a 6 day race! Now this was no ordinary race which went from point A to point B no! It was round and round a 400m track for 6 days!!! 4 hours one way then a bell would ring and everyone would turn and run in the other direction! The idea was the runner who covered the most distance in the time was the winner!!!!

Anyway as I said I was his one and only support crew member so was responsible for everything from cooking, keeping records, getting supplies and tending to all his aches and pains!! “Nursing duties”. I had to keep an accurate record of his daily food intake following a very strict diet set-out by long distant runners and research paper written on the subject of nutrition for distant running!!! This involves me preparing carbohydrate loaded meals at regular intervals between all my other tasks!

Despite following the menu to the letter Robert was feeling weak and very tired finding he had to stop frequently, something he couldn’t afford to do, so by the 3rd day he was considering calling it quits! It was at this time 4am in the morning to be exact that the cooker I was preparing his porridge on gave up!!! I sat there crying looking at this watery mess in the pot and wondering what I was going to do! After giving Robert his watery porridge I crashed!! The following morning I went to the caravan that was supplying the food for the support people and bought a large steak sandwich with all the extras and gave it to him! He was very reluctant to eat it as it didn’t follow all the findings of the research, when I advised him, if he wanted this relationship to go any further, he would eat it, he saw my point of view and did so! Well surprise surprise!!! His energy levels rose and he felt better than he had for days! So from then on it was steak sandwiches bacon and eggs and everything in between as long as I didn’t have to cook it! He didn’t win but stayed the distance, something that may not have happened if he had continued to stick to his original diet! 556km

So this is what I mean when I say that there is no one rule that fits every person, you need to listen to what your body tells you and adjust your diet to suit.

Making smart choices about the type, time and quantity of food you eat is important to everyone’s wellbeing, but even more so, once you start to exercise!